Friday, February 1, 2013

Toy Fair 2013 : A NECA Preview

We are a few days away from our first "official" Toy Fair 2013 appointment, but the news is still dropping like mad and we are scrambling like fools to scoop it up! Today, we got a tip on three new action figure properties coming from the masters of movie plastics; NECA. We had some fun speculating on what licenses were available and NECA came up more than a couple of times as the ones to watch. It turns out they've deffinately got some new action up their sleeves...

Pacific Rim: We'd been told NECA had this license, but that doesn't diminish out excitement for a line of toys based on giant Kaiju monsters battling massive Yeager robots one bit. Live Action Evangelion? Yes, please. NECA will kick off their line with three 7 inch "DX" figures of Knifehead Kaiju (a massive monster that surfaces from 5 miles below the sea), Yeager "Gipsy Danger" and Yeager "Crimson Typhoon".

Kick Ass 2: Mezco had the license for the first film and cranked out some 6 inch Kick Ass action figures, but they weren't exactly full of action. With NECA's new articulation systems, their Kick Ass 2 line will surely be a hotly anticipated series. Again, they kick things off with 3 figures including Kick Ass (Aaron Johnson), Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) AKA Motherf*!$er. Maybe we'll get an SDCC bloody variant Red Mist with the Mothertrucker name on it?

After Earth: "The director of "Sixth Sense," M. Night Shyamalan brings us a story set 1000 years in the future. Crash landing on the Earth, Kitai Rage (Jaden Smith) must fight to survive and save his injured father (Will Smith). The film brings us the story of his emotional struggles and growth, balancing impressive CG work and human drama in this science fiction film. This action figure perfectly recreates Kitai, who shows great poise despite his youth, wearing a special body suit!" So you see, 1 figure for this line that didn't seem to have too many low cost possibilities anyway, especially considering this is a single movie with no sequels planned (for now) and an untested license. Can't be cranking out monsters all willy nilly. NECA will most likely get in and get out on this one, but if Kitai sells well, who knows what will happen! This also begs the question..if Kitai is still a kid (relatively) in this movie, will they make him in a scale that leaves room for a slightly taller Will Smith later on? They do love proper scale when they are able!

Toy Fair 2013 starts in 9 more days, and then all will be revealed. Special thanks to Chisato Uno!

We've still got a small mountain of UK Toy Fair goodness to sort through
as the companies begin to send us all their teasers and pre-show
reveals, so keep checking back often and follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/idlehandsblog or https://twitter.com/nomadixxx (if you want your news faster and don't mind mildly psycho chatter.)

You can also dive into our picture galleries as they go live RIGHT HERE!